Joe D opens up the show. Adam seems not to be there.
Ribbon cutting yesterday at the new Niles store. Joe D was playing Rock Band.
Caller 1
Q: about the internet connection. When I turn on the cable modem, the hard drive starts going like crazy. What could be going on?
A: When you firs turn on, the network card gets an address, then you'll have to log in. Ian thinks that McCaffe might be slowing things down when it loads the firewall, see if you are too low on memory
Joe tells of an article where Apple is a little irritated with Microsoft's latest ads about people buying computers. Apple did lower their prices a little. Ian is replacing his old Powerbook.
Caller 2
Q: a repeat problem, he is getting messages that the Virtual Memory is low, what is the problem?
A: you can adjust the virtual memory higher, or add some more real memory.
Since memory is cheap, make sure you got enough memory. 2GB is good for Vista, 1GB is ok for XP. Remember that 32-bit operating systems, like XP cannot even see more than 4GB of RAM, so it is possible to put in too memory that your computer will not even use.
Segment 2
Joe D ran into a new Malware called Personal Antivirus, it pretends to be an AntiVirus program. It is pretty difficult to remove. It will ask you for money to install it. If you see this, give us a call to get it removed as soon as possible.
Caller 3
Q: got a Dell, about 5-years old, has ZoneAlarm, also got Norton AV, all of a sudden I can't get online, so I disabled Zonealarm, I tried to get rid of Norton, so now every time I want to go on, I have to disable zonealarm, why does it do this?
A: you only want to have one AV/security program running at a time. Just us a good AV program like Norton 2009, and Windows does have a good firewall.
Talking about some technology flops. Things that were hyped up, but didn't sell. Like the CueCat to scan barcodes. Ian's G1 phone has a program to scan barcodes. WebTV was also on the list. Laserdisk is also on the list. Zip disks are also on the list. and Packard Bell.
Segment 3
Joe D tells that NASA discovered that they lost the original moon footage.
Caller 4
Q: has a acer laptop, has time/warner, have a long wait to get on the internet, they came in to check, and they said the cable and modem were ok, but they said the laptop was "overloaded". what does that mean?
A: We will have to come out and inspect the machine and see exactly what is causing the slowness, we then give you an estimate.
Caller 5
Q: got a Dell laptop, about 3-years old, when online, the fan seems to speed up, is that normal?
A: yes, the fan speed is automatic to keep the CPU cool, so it could be clogged with some dust, or depending on what you do on line, the CPU could get more busy and get hot, and then the fan gets faster. try downloading a program called SpeedFan.
Caller 6
Q: was doing a windows update, it said to download activex, got a security warning, should I do this?
A: windows update is itself an activeX control, so you do need to use activeX when using windows update. if you get activeX warnings on other sites, you will have to be aware
Caller 7
Q: I was looking at getting a new laptop, should I hold off for Windows 7, is there a lot wrong with Vista?
A: windows 7 does look good, though Vista is running fine now on new machines, you can get a free (or low cost) upgrade to win 7 when it comes out.
Caller 8
Q: my spyware program expired, so I got a warning, so I clicked on it, and it offered several different ones, I chose a 90-day trial for Trend Micro, and I hear that you should buy the disk instead of downloading online?
A: we recommend to do a fresh install each year, it doesn't have to be from disk or online. just uninstall the old version, and install the new version, don't do a upgrade. we choose one that works best for a particular situation.
Segment 4
Caller 9
Q: got several old computers, like commodore 64, 128, etc. how do I get rid of them?
A: try selling them on ebay, there are lots of people that like those classic computers. Look for the green team to have a recycle period to take computers for recycling.
Caller 10
Q: I got my daugher a macbook, but she doesn't get the amount of problems we get on the home computer. is that normal?
A: yes, there are not that many viruses and malware that are targeting for macs. So, you do pay a bit more, but you do not have to worry about the level of malware.
Caller 11
Q: leaving my computer on all the time, pros or cons?
A: well, it does use power, so make sure that you set up power-saving modes to shut down the system if it not in use.
Q: do you turn it off at night?
A: Joe D does not say what he does. {Joe M says turn your computer off at night}
Q: I have problems seeing. Are there some programs to magnify the screen?
A: IE can make the text bigger, if you use it.
Q: I downloaded a screen magnifier, but it makes it too big.
A: Joe D recommends IE to zoom in.
Caller 12
Q: had my computer in for cleanup, on the desktop I have an icon on the desktop, like firefox, it takes like a half a minute to come up, is there a way to speed that up?
A: it is tough to tell what could be slowing that down. Firefox has been getting slower and slower with each version.
Q: any search engines you recommend?
A: Ian just uses Google.
There is an add-on called User Agent Switcher to make your firefox browser look like different browsers.
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